Good news for Muleys?

I've gone out several times the last few weeks scouting for bow season and making a few hunts now that the season has started and I have been excited by what I've seen. My most recent hunt just this morning in 3 hours I saw 22 deer, 4 bucks (one mature hard- horned 4-point, two nice velvet 3 points, and a yearling velvet forkie with a great spread already) 10 does and 8 fawns. This has been typical the last few weeks, good bucks, mature to yearling, and good fawn numbers with few dry does. Seems like there is some hope for the future deer numbers in Oregon. If we can just take out some more cougars we might be able to see some recovery. Just a thought, if you have a deer or elk tag this year, consider picking up a cougar tag as well (only $14.50) If you kill one cougar, you save around 52 deer per year. Even 100 extra dead cats equals 5200 extra deer for next year (not counting the 5000 new fawns the following June, etc.) At that rate we could see a very real recovery.

Have you guys been out at all this year? What have you seen? Good, bad, ugly?

Please let us know which zone you were in so we can get some wolves imported into that area to take care of the problem!

Actually coyotes are the number one fawn killer,and with the addition of wolves it just adds to the dilema! My oppinion..

I did a trip to SE Oregon and saw better numbers than I thought I would also. Nothing to get me thinking we've returned to the 1960s but better than 7 or 8 years ago.

FWIW, I live near Cottage Grove and the local PD shot at a cat last night right in town. Thats about 6 sightings in the lkast 2 weeks here

I've been hunting west side archery and it's been slow, I have seen a handful of blacktails (no bucks) but the elk hunting was slow opening weekend. My buddy was hunting this week and ran into a big cougar at about 150yds, no shot unfortunatley before it bolted and he wasn't carrying a sidearm. I encourage everyone in the woods this year to pick up a cougar tag and whack any yotes you come across.

LBR